


Sleeping Hybrid

by Lacrimula_Falsa



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, First Meetings, Gen, Gift Fic, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Prompt Fill, Put On The Suit Stony Stocking 2020, Werewolf Steve Rogers, alien Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29353701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacrimula_Falsa/pseuds/Lacrimula_Falsa
Summary: The man – and at least physically it was a man, that was pretty apparent given he was naked – was still solidly built, light-skinned and blonde. He even still looked mostly Terran.However, he also had hind paws, claws and a muzzle now and was partially covered in sand-coloured fur.Tony was looking at a real-life werewolf. This was the most insane thing that had ever happened to him.(Steve and Tony in space, plus werewolves. Well. Technically there’s only one werewolf.)
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Tony Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	Sleeping Hybrid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fluffypanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffypanda/gifts).



> This was supposed to be my gift for _Fluffypanda_ for the **POTS Stony Stocking 2020**. It did not, unfortunately, make it into the event despite the mods' and my best efforts, because my internet went out on posting day and staid out for a while. If you're Fluffypanda: I could not resist a space AU prompt and I hope you like this. If you're someone else, I hope you have fun reading this too. The prompt I'm filling with this is in the endnotes.

Tony was aware that the Arcturianan had ripped him off. A small moon full of Exlon 2 for a stasis unit? Basically wormhole robbery. Or whatever the deep space version of highway robbery was.

But it was Howling Wars era stasis unit in  _ working condition _ , which meant that the people at the Museum For Pre-Union History were probably going to give him an honorary doctorate. Or at least let him attend their lectures without an armed escort of fifty no matter what Howard said.

Hexar and Helices, being a Banzar royal could be a real pain in the backside. Especially in a society that had decided royals were mostly nice because they could do all the boring diplomatic functions for you, or treated them as better comm-net entertainment.

But that was all rather beside the point, which was that he’d found pre-union Terran equipment that still  _ worked _ . And he got to look at it and take it apart  _ before _ a bunch of Terran scientists had picked it over for any scrap of data and probably completely destroyed it in the process.

Tony pulled the cover off the stasis unit with no small degree of enthusiasm.

Then immediately stumbled back and fell flat on his ass.

“What the Hexar!”

The stasis unit  _ wasn’t empty _ .

Oh no. The Arcturianan hadn’t only ripped him off, they’d probably also just involved him in the cover-up of a homicide.

“Jarvis! Page the Arcturianan trading vessel!”

“The vessel has already entered hyperspace and can no longer be contacted without the aid of a hyperspace comm array. They have already left Union space.”

Bloody cursed Arcturianans.

Tony picked himself up from the floor, then cautiously approached the stasis chamber.

Yup, still not empty.

The person inside was only partially visible through the transparent part of the lid, but they were, to Tony's layperson's eye, Terran and presumably male if the lack of visible mammalian glands was anything to go by.

The Terran was light-skinned and blonde, with a solid build. At least on his head and torso, there was no visible injury.

“Jarvis. Scan the stasis unit. Can our sensors penetrate the casing?”

“Partially, your highness. Sensor readings indicate organic matter inside the unit that is devoid of known pathogens, but are unreliable due to the shielded construction of the unit.”

Great. So Tony probably wasn’t about to flood his starship with a historical Terran disease.

“How safe would it be to open this up?"

"That would be inadvisable. Since our sensors cannot fully penetrate the hull of the stasis chamber, there is no guarantee that the interior is not contaminated."

Tony frowned. He had to get at the body  _ somehow _ so he could figure out what to do about it.

“Jarvis, is there a chance we could get readings from the stasis chambers own sensors if we reactivate it?”

“Scanning. Please wait.”

A few moments later Jarvis said

“My scans and calculations indicate that the ship’s low-level mobile power units unit should be able to power the stasis units inbuilt computer system and sensor array. However, I cannot make a prognosis as to whether doing so will result in usable data, or damage the unit.”

Well. Tony knew what his father would do. Plunk the whole thing down at the Terran museum and make it somebody else’s problem. But Howard had the curiosity of a Terran gnat when it came to anything pre-union. Tony wouldn’t be able to sleep for the rest of his life if he left the solving of this mystery to somebody else.

...Also, there  _ was _ still the possibility that this ancient unit contained a modern murder victim so that probably was an argument in favour of the less cautious but more speedy approach.

“Okay. Jarvis, ready one of the power units and have Dum-E hovertray it in here. Replicate some adaptor parts to connect it. Also, replicate me a restoration kit for stasis units for the oldest standard stasis chamber you have in your database."

He swiped a finger over the frankly filthy control panel of the unit, wrinkling his nose at the black stain it left on his fingers.

“Oh and like a gallon of cleaning solution. And send in some of the spider bots.”

* * *

Hours later, Tony had to conclude that this whole endeavour had been a huge waste of time. And restoration kits.

Sure, they'd gotten the stasis unit powered and it's computer running, but the data had been corrupted to Earth and back. Not to mention that the sensor array inside the unit was completely burned out.

On the upside, the stasis unit was now clean.

That still left the problem of getting it open, but Tony had flexed his societal royalty bonus points a bit and gotten an express appointment at the nearest biowaste facility, where they had a clean room to open containers potentially filled with hazardous things in.

Sure, he’d had to basically buy the boss of the place his own starship to keep things hush-hush, but considering the Banzar royal family owned several starship yards, that was not as much of a problem as it might have been for other people. And it was worth it to keep this whole thing quiet until Tony could figure out if the guy in his stasis unit had been murdered, was a deceased victim of sentient humanoid trafficking, or had just taken a nap in the wrong place and never woken up.

...Yeah, he was not feeling hopeful about that last one.

* * *

_Beeeeep-breeep. Beeeeep-breeep. Beeeeep-breeep. Beeeeep-breeep. Beeeeep-breeep._

“Jarvis! Off! What time do you think it is!?”

“It is nearly midnight home-world time. However, there is an urgent situation in the cargo bay.”

Tony sat up, rubbing his eyes, his second eyelid still half down from sleeping.

“What?”

“There is a situation-"

"No. I mean what  _ is  _ the situation?”

“The occupant of the stasis unit has woken up.”

Tony blinked, second eyelid finally opening properly.

“Come. Again.”

“The occupant of the stasis chamber has woken up and is currently trying to escape the cargo bay. They have disabled two cargo robots I had sent to intercept them and are currently engaging a security drone. I have established an energy barrier to contain them inside the room.”

Tony had never gotten to the cargo bay so fast in his life, especially not in his sleepwear.

* * *

Tony arrived to absolute mayhem.

Trough the energy field all he could see past the two fallen cargo drones – who’s shielding was  _ dented _ like it hat been hit by a rock, Hexar and Helices – was a security drone struggling to push someone back towards a second energy barrier flashing in telling colours indicating it was a stun field.

Speaking of stunning, the security drones shockers seemed to be having very little effect.

Tony was really starting to regret leaving his armour at home.

“Jarvis, how long has this been going on?”

“Seven minutes, three seconds.”

_ Seven minutes. _ Tony had seen that type of security drone disable a Terran in twenty seconds.

What on Earth was going on.

“Jarvis, it’s clearly not working. If the energy field behind the door will hold, disable the drone.”

“But your highness, it is not advis-”

“Do it, Jarvis.”

Inside the cargo bay, the security drone stopped moving. Then it flew into the stun field with a horrible sound. The stun field flared brightly, then fizzled out.

“Aaaaand they’ve overloaded the stun field generator. Great. Jarvis, please zip it, I know you said this was inadvisable.”

Jarvis staid quiet, which probably meant Tony owed him a new sensor relay or something.

Now that the security drone wasn’t in the way anymore, Tony finally got his first good look at the person who’d thrown it.

And promptly felt his mouth actually drop open in shock.

The man – and at least physically it was a man, that was pretty apparent given he was naked – was still solidly built, light-skinned and blonde. He even still looked mostly Terran.

However, he also had hind paws, claws and a muzzle now and was partially covered in sand-coloured fur.

Tony was looking at a real-life werewolf. This was the most insane thing that had ever happened to him.

Then the werewolf looked back at him and things got insaner.

There was an eternal-seeming moment where they both stared at each other.

“You’re Banzar.”

Tony, in a moment of atypical stupidity, felt the need to answer that with.

“Only half.”

And he was talking to a werewolf. A live one.

Who was now coming towards him. Quickly.

Toy raised his hand, only to realise that that was pointless without a weaponised glove on.

The werewolf raised his own clawed hand.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m sorry about the robots. I was just confused. I woke up and they were suddenly there.”

Yeah, Tony was going to need like a whole month to process that he was actually speaking to a Howler. A  _ Howler _ .

“We prefer the term _lupus_ _hybrid_ , actually.”

So he might have said that out loud.

“Ah. Sorry. I’ve, uh. I have never met one of you before.”

The werewolf frowned.

“Is this a civilian base?”

And that was right. If this was a real How-  _ lupus hybrid _ , who had somehow miraculously survived for  _ a century  _ in a stasis unit, then to him it was probably still some time during the Howling Wars. Which was insane to consider.

“Oh. Uh. That is...really difficult to explain. Maybe you. Want to dress for that conversation. Or something."

The werewolf blinked, looked himself over, then clapped his hands over his crotch in a moment of absolute comedic brilliance. And who knew, werewolves could blush. Under their fur, even.

* * *

An hour or two later – Tony had completely lost track of time at this point – the werewolf had a name, clothes on and gulped down several high caloric nutrition shakes.

He was also noticeable less furry and more Terran looking.

Captain Steve Rogers was either deeply in shock, or taking this all much better than Tony.

“So you’re saying we won. And there are no more Silvers?”

Tony shook his head.

“No, there are. But they’ve completely retreated to their home system. No one in the Union has seen one in seventy years. Probably longer for anyone who’s not what you’d call a Fleeter. But Terra won the war with the help of their allies and became part of the Union. Terra is now considered the sister planet of Banzar.”

“Huh. That’s nice I suppose.”

Captain Rogers, who had insisted on being called Steve but that was just weird considering he was a Howling War hero, peeked at Tony from behind his protein shake.

“And you’re, uh, a direct product of this union?”

“I’m half Terran, yes. And it’s not offensive to ask that anymore.”

“Oh. Alright.”

“You’re taking this much better than I expected.”

Captain Rogers made a considering noise, frowning into his shake.

“Well, I suppose. I mean, I _am_ happy to be alive and...that the war is over. Which I still can’t quite believe. But to be honest, I’m trying really hard not to think about how I missed _one hundred years_ or else I might throw up all these nice shakes.”

Wow, the past clearly had had horrible food if he  _ liked _ medical emergency shakes.

“That's...fair. Also, I am beyond unqualified to help you out there. I am at best an engineer and at worst a celebrity. Unless you turn out to actually be a sentient artificial intelligence, I probably can't fix your mental problems."

And wow, he probably should not have mentioned that sentient AI was a thing now.

Luckily, it seemed that Captain Roger had overheard that part.

“A celebrity?”

“Well, what do you know about Banzar royalty?”

“Ah.”

Enough, it seemed.

There was a slightly awkward pause.

“So, do I call you ‘your highness’?”

“I mean, do I call you a ‘werewolf’.”

Rogers grimaced.

“I mean, I don’t mind if you do it in your head. Most people do. But please just call me a hybrid to my face. Or Steve. I mean. It’s my name.”

“Noted. And please never call me ‘your highness’. Or Anthony. That’s only for my mother to shout when she’s mad.”

“I was wondering how a Banzar is called ‘Tony’, but that makes sense if your mother’s human.”

Tony laughed, startled.

“Oh no! My father's human."

Rogers – Steve, damn it – blinked at him, looking extremely shocked about this of all things.

“Oh. I never thought a human man would move to Banzar.”

It took Tony a moment to work that one out.

“Because of the matriarchy? That never bothered my dad. I think he considered that a benefit because it was expected that my mother would support him even if he spent all his time trying to build better spaceships.”

“No, I meant. Uh. Never mind."

There was another awkward pause, though this one was only awkward to Steve and  _ very _ funny to Tony.

“Okay, I was going to leave you dangling because you are very cute when you try to hide behind your mug but. You know the Harem thing is not real, right? That’s just a human stereotype.”

“Oh. Well, that's embarrassing now."

“...Did you think I bought the stasis unit to sell you to a Harem or something?”

Steve ducked even further behind the table.

“I mean. No? I didn’t think anything, I was mostly scared when there was suddenly a huge robot.”

“That’s fair. Also for the record, I thought that unit was empty when I bought it.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry, that is probably upsetting to hear.”

Steve smiled, of all things.

“No actually. That’s pretty romantic.”

“It’s what now?”

Steve finally let go of the mug he’d been clutching like a security blanket, looking the most animated Tony had seen him so far outside of crushing a security robot.

“Well, I don’t know what you know about Terran fairytales, but there’s a pretty popular motif in them of a sleeping beauty being woken up by a handsome prince.”

The awkward pauses were getting ridiculous, even considering how insane this whole situation was.

Tony finally managed to speak after what felt like an hour.

“So you think I'm handsome."

And Steve was blushing again.

“I mean. That wasn’t my main point but. Uh. Yes? I always thought Banzar were, ah, pretty, but on a human face the colouration is really very...striking.”

...Was the century-old hybrid soldier flirting with him?

“So you’d be down with being escorted to the prince’s castle? Which is actually an orbital space station, just to be clear.”

Steve looked sad for a moment before he rallied, giving Tony an absolutely blinding smile.

“Well, I have nowhere else to be and that _is_ usually how the story goes.”

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt I filled was “Scifi AU, Werewolves were created using alien DNA to create soldiers to fight wars on alien planets, but the secret to making them was lost centuries ago. But then Tony, prince of a galactic empire, purchases a werewolf in stasis.”. I did not quite get the middle part in but I hope everyone enjoys this take on the prompt regardless. Comments are greatly appreciated and kudos are nice too.


End file.
